Winger Blessings Tembo\u2019s decision to make a u-turn on a three-year-contract he claims Be Forward Wanderers made him sign under duress last week, reflects the chaos that is on the local transfer market.
\nLocal footballers, taking advantage of Super League of Malawi (Sulom) and Football Association of Malawi\u2019s (Fam) passive enforcement of players\u2019 transfer rules and regulations, use such antics during offseason breaks to fleece other unsuspecting clubs and boost bargaining power.
\n\u201cI am still consulting on my next move. I will come back to you once I have a meeting with my bosses,\u201d Tembo told The Daily Times\u2019 edition of December 1 2017.
\nTo increase his bargaining power, Joseph Kamwendo used similar tactics last season when he threatened to leave Wanderers for Masters Security FC.
\nIt is the same thing with Tembo. The mind of Tembo might still be at Silver but his heart is on money which Wanderers might have dangled in front of him.
\nNever rule out the temporary lure of a car and Confederation of African Football Champions League football which Wanderers would get involved in from next month.
\nTembo might have felt less valued and taken for granted at Silver. Silver knew that his contract was to expire in December 2017 but took it for granted that he was theirs, anyway.
\nAfter all, he was a club veteran heading to the twilight of his career. Silver never imagined that Tembo could sacrifice his loyalty to Silver on the altar of quick cash.
\nThat is what one reads, between the lines, from what Silver interim General Secretary, Thabo Nyirenda, told The Daily Times of December 1 2017.
\n\u201cWe have started negotiations with our captain on the possibility of him signing a new contract with us. He is our captain and he has always been loyal to the club.
\nHe is the only veteran remaining in the team. We will wait to hear from him. We are sure that he will play for us next season,\u201d Nyirenda said. According to Fifa\u2019s transfer rules and regulations, players who are into the last six months of their contracts, can talk freely to other interested teams.
\nWhen a contract expires, a player can leave for another team freely, as is the case with Tembo.
\nLast season, Malata also left Silver for the Nomads in a similar manner.
\nSilver\u2019s former players and fans bashed the team\u2019s management for, in two consecutive seasons, letting go club captains.
\n\u201cSilver Strikers FC Executive Committee is a big shame! They released our captain Lucky Malata and now they have let Blessings Tembo go!,\u201d a former player for Silver posted on his Facebook page.
\nDesperate times call for desperate measures. Silver had to react, and they did that by shifting goal-posts, claiming that Tembo\u2019s contract would, afterall, run until June 2018.
\n\u201cThe contract was, thus, signed by mistake. We have also been furnished with a copy of the letter from Blessings to Wanderers in which the former rescinded the contract based on several grounds, including glaring fundamental errors regarding commencement date and consideration, among others,\u201d reads part of Nyirenda\u2019s letter.
\nSilver did not take their case to Fam because the Lilongwe giants know they do not have any solid ground to stand on.
\nFam has a copy of Tembo\u2019s contract which expired. Silver were
\nmerely trying to ease the tension in their camp.
\nThe happenings on the local transfer market show that players take advantage of Sulom and Fam\u2019s passive enforcement of the transfer rules.
\nLast season, Masters, as is the case with many clubs including Nyasa Big Bullets (on John Lanjesi and Emmanuel Zoya\u2019s transfer from Civil Sporting Club), committed an offence of playertapping on Kamwendo, and got away with it.
\nAnd now by claiming that Tembo signed a contract with Wanderers under duress, Silver were also guilty of player-tapping because Tembo is no longer their property.
\nBut, where is Fam and Sulom in all this? Last season, Fam summoned Masters for a hearing over the Kamwendo saga, but it all turned out to be a mere publicity stunt. The matter never reached its logical conclusion.
\nOn Tembo\u2019s issue, Fam and Sulom, too, are waiting for some party to lodge an official complaint. The two bodies are playing the ostrich.
\nIt is like the police standing aloof while watching someone stealing, waiting for someone to shout, thief! thief!.
\nWanderers can lodge a omplaint to Fam against Silver for player-tapping offence, but it is unlikely that the Nomads have time for that.
\nIf Silver, indeed, have a copy of Tembo\u2019s contract indicating that it would expire in June, then some party must have forged a contract.
\nSurely, Fam and Sulom do not want to entertain such behaviour.
\nUnfortunately, they are doing that by default.
\nTembo\u2019s manager, Jimmy Linje, has admitted that Wanderers own the player. Wanderers are unlikely to dance to Tembo\u2019s tune as it is believed that the Nomads have registered the winger for Champions League assignments.
\nFurthermore, Fifa\u2019s rules and regulations, Article 17, state that unilateral termination of a contract is only permissible when there is a just cause (either playing less than 10 percent of games in a season or over unpaid dues).
\nTembo\u2019s u-turn could compromise his career.
\nThe winger is sane and he is an adult hence, in law, his argument that he signed the contract under duress does not hold. In law, ignorance is no defence.
\n\u201cIf a contract is terminated without just cause, the person in breach will have to pay compensation. Generally, when calculating the level of compensation, the law of the country concerned and the specific city of sport will be considered,\u201d www.fifa.com states.
\nIt is Tembo\u2019s fault but in the larger context, it is all a reflection of the village operation that has always characterised the local transfer market.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Winger Blessings Tembo\u2019s decision to make a u-turn on a three-year-contract he claims Be Forward Wanderers made him sign under duress last week, reflects the chaos that is on the local transfer market. Local footballers, taking advantage of Super League of Malawi (Sulom) and Football Association of Malawi\u2019s (Fam) passive enforcement of players\u2019 transfer rules […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":58482,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-58632","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58632","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=58632"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58632\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":58634,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58632\/revisions\/58634"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/58482"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=58632"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=58632"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=58632"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}